It looks like they’re putting Tom Swift on screen.
Actually, the nice thing is that it’s an automatic reboot – you do Tom Swift IV and set it in the present day, with a few references to Tom Swift Sr., and Jr.
I actually loved the Tom Swift books when I was in fifth grade; they were one of my introductions to science fiction. A new version, though, might come off as a McGyver clone.
It would be nice if they did a Tom Swift, Sr., series, but the time for that has passed (it would have been perfect when Indiana Jones was big).
Ya know, I don’t really think they need to reimage it all that much. I mean this is aimed at kids, so their scientific suspension of disbelief won’t be nearly that huge an obsticle. So things like the Flying Lab or the Outpost in Space won’t set them to automatic revulsion. Just update the dialog some and I think you could do a lot of the original series. I actually think trying to go with the IV series would make it a bit “out there” and the audiences won’t go for it because it’ll be compaired to other space type movies like Star Wars or Star Trek.
Just for clarification, are we talking the Victor Appleton 1910s and 1920s series? I think those would need a lot more updated than just the dialogue. Although “Oh, for the love of spark plugs!” does have a nifty ring to it.
Tom Swift (unlike Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys) is one series which rebooted itself before that became popular. I have some Tom Swift III books, one of which is set in a space colony. The link didn’t say how to handle this. Father-son inventors have been a constant - even Tom Sr.'s father was an inventor, just not as smart.
You can do Tom anywhere from practically steampunk to a supermodern space adventure. It will be interesting to see which way they go.
BTW, wiseguys, I’ve read Tom Swift Sr. and Jr. extensively, and nowhere in them have I noticed a Tom Swiftie. Love of spark plugs, yes.
BTW, the original Tom Swifts were written by Howard Garis, best known as the inventor of Uncle Wiggly. They were a bit racist, of course, just from their time, but much less so than the original Nancy Drews.
I also have some of the original Tom Swift Sr. books from the 20s. I was thinking more of the Tom Swift Jr. books from the 50’s to…the 70s is when I think book 35 was published. I think the third “reboot” was published in the early 80s.
But they were considerably more anti-Semitic. Swift’s main antagonist was Jewish and the author never held back in his efforts to remind people of that fact.
Incidentally, there was an attempt to do a big-budget Tom Swift musical back in the late 60’s. They had actually built some of the props and sets before the plug was pulled on the project.
Which book? Tom’s major antagonist, at least in the beginning, was the kid from town who insisted on building his own airships and stuff. I never pegged him as Jewish - just the standard bully type so common in the day.
There were a few German enemies also, carefully not associated with the government, just like in the Jr. books a lot of the enemies were Asian or Eastern European, also not connected to any government.
I suppose it depends on which version. I grew up on the Tom Swift, Jr. books, which didn’t have anything like that. It’s possible the original series did (I only read one book in it).
It wasn’t another kid. The Jewish villains figure prominently in Tom Swift and His Talking Pictures (1928). The main heavy was Jacob Greenbaum, an anarchist who’s hired by a group of Jewish film executives to keep Tom’s latest invention off the market by any means necessary. As stated in a 1976 American Heritage article about Tom Swift’s creator, Victor Stratemayer:
BTW, this article was how I also found out about the failed attempt to film a “Tom Swift” musical during the late 60’s.